Faced up to Book

First, a joke.

A man goes into an electrical repair shop with his telly. He says to the assistant, 'My TV only shows pictures of grass, trees and earth.'
'That's funny,' said the assistant. 'It's supposed to pick up sky.'

So the day before yesterday I signed up to FaceBook. I thought it would be a good way of networking, of getting people to read my writing and say, 'She's jolly entertaining, let's pay her lots of money to write entertaining stuff for us. In fact, let's give her a three book deal whilst we're about it and a massive advance so she can scoot off and buy a smallholding in the countryside. The peace and quiet will undoubtedly improve her work. She could probably claim the peace and quiet back as a tax deduction.'

Of course, this would rely on the person reading my stuff to be a publisher. Or someone who knows a publisher and has influence over them in some manner, like a series of dodgy photos taken at a Christmas party three years ago involving a photocopier and a bag of satsumas.

But publishers and agents are bound to be FaceBook people too, aren't they? I mean, it's such a time wasting pursuit, this social networking malarkey, that it can be the only reason I can think of as to why the manuscripts I send off take months and months to be returned with, generally, a bog standard rejection slip.

'We can't offer constructive cristicism because we get so many manuscripts a week,' they say.

Yeah, right! More like they're sitting in the office faffing about on FaceBook and Uhoo-Tube and Beebopaloola.

I may have just scuppered my chances of ever being published. But then a good publisher would know I am being ironic!!

I managed to set up the account myself. I got lost several times whilst navigating the site and trying to add on bits to make me seem an interesting writely-type person. The getting lost was due to me having dominant muscles in my right leg which means I have the urge to turn left all the time when coming out of doorways and internet pages. And then Vera and Chris both popped up to hold on-line conversations, and then Heather did too, so I was the multi-tasking queen for an hour or so.

I was quite pleased that by the end of my session I had acquired 6 friends. Until I looked at Heather's page and saw she had 367.

367?? I don't even know that many people, let alone count them as friends!!

But I consoled myself with the fact that I am very selective about my friends and it's better to concentrate on quality than be a media tart to the masses. Until I become a media tart of course.

And finally, today's Words of Wisdom:

'Never wear anything that panics a cat.'